Who This Book Is and Isn’t For / 57
Capillaria34 got before the queen of the depths of the seas, this was the method he used when trying to attract her attention to him: “By the method of the excellent Mr. Berlitz, I pointed at myself and I said: ‘human.’” This method, the direct method, dethroned translation, which had been till then monarchical in the instruction of classical languages. Translation served as the basis for language teaching for decades in various, gradually modernizing forms. The pace of language learning was of course determined by the method. By this time in Europe (late 19th century), boys and girls at the age of 10 were starting to learn foreign languages in school. By the time they acquired the “general knowledge” provided by secondary schools, they had some knowledge of one or even two foreign languages. At this time, however, modern educational methods only took root in private language teaching; the school curriculum was still under the yoke of the pedagogical heritage of the preceding age. Being drilled with grammar and forced to memorize exceptions that occur once in a leap-year… no wonder that children left secondary schools almost with a “virgin brain” after studying German for six or eight years. It was only the children of the well-off citizenry that obtained a usable command of a language, of course as a result of the parents’ financial generosity and the children’s investment of time. If we consider the nanny system—which is, admittedly, rather efficient from the point of view of language learning—it is not difficult to recognize the Romans’ relationship to their Greek teachers. The task of these exploited domestic maids-of-all-work was not only language instruction, but also the teaching of manners. I am biased towards these pioneer practitioners of our trade: on the one hand because 34. A fantasy novel written by Frigyes Karinthy, a Hungarian writer of the early 20th century, first published in English in 1965.